Crossroads (Battlestar Galactica)

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“Crossroads”

Battlestar Galactica episode

The "Final Five" Cylon models are shown in a shared dream between Roslin, Athena, and Caprica-Six. The identities of four of them are revealed at the end of part two.

Episode no.

Season 3
Episode 19 and 20

Written by

Michael Taylor (Part 1) & Mark Verheiden (Part 2)

Directed by

Michael Rymer

Guest stars

Chelah Horsdal
Mark Sheppard

Production no.

319 and 320

Original airdate

March 18, 2007
March 25, 2007

Episode chronology
← Previous	Next →
"The Son Also Rises"	"Battlestar Galactica: Razor"

Episode chronology

"Crossroads" (Parts one and two) are the nineteenth and twentieth episodes of the third season and season finale from the science fiction television series, Battlestar Galactica. Neither episode begins with a survivor count.

1 Plot (including cut scenes)
- 1.1 Part I
- 1.2 Part II
2 Notes
3 Awards
4 External links
5 References

[edit] Plot (including cut scenes)

[edit] Part I

President Roslin and Athena share the same vision of chasing Hera Agathon through the ancient opera house on Kobol, where they also encounter Caprica Six. At Joe's Bar, Colonel Tigh and Samuel Anders share a different form of vision, ethereal music that only the two of them are able to hear.

Just before Baltar's trial is set to begin, Cassidy refuses Roslin's request that Baltar be tried for conspiring with the Cylons, unwilling to act on Roslin's visions as evidence. Meanwhile, Baltar is visited in the brig by a woman who asks him to bless her child. He refuses, but she reaffirms her belief in him nonetheless.

Although the fleet is nearing the Ionian Nebula, and has not encountered the Cylons for weeks, Adama is unconvinced that the fleet has truly outrun them. His suspicions are confirmed when Racetrack's trailing Raptor narrowly dodges an attack by a massive Cylon fleet. When Tigh questions Caprica Six, she informs him that the Cylons had found a way to track the fleet's Refinery Ship. The interrogation turns to blows when Six takes her imaginary Baltar's suggestion to bring up Tigh's wife. Shaken, Tigh has Six shackled.

At the beginning of the trial, Cassidy's opening arguments rest on Baltar having been a failed leader and the devastating loss of 5,197 people on New Caprica. Defense attorney Romo Lampkin opens by condemning Baltar in the harshest terms, finally obtaining an unruly shout from a member of the gallery. Lampkin uses the outburst to turn his arguments abruptly into the notion that Baltar is being railroaded to execution and that the trial is being held as a formality over top of the carnal desire to punish Baltar beyond any blame he deserved. Lampkin also takes advantage Roslin's arrival at the courtroom to suggest that she would have pursued confrontation with the Cylons, and gotten more people killed than Baltar had by unconditional surrender.

The trial moves further into Baltar's favor when Colonel Tigh takes the witness stand and admits to masterminding a suicide bombing plot which killed dozens of colonial members of the New Caprica Police force. Tigh adds that another purpose of the attack was to assassinate Baltar, and shows no remorse for any of the results. After Cassidy opens up the subject by suggesting that Ellen is another victim of Baltar, Lampkin pushes him into eventually confessing to killing Ellen. Romo Lampkin also coaxes Tigh into admitting he has been drinking, and Tigh further degrades his own position when he again hears the ethereal music and angrily yells for it to be turned off. He is effectively barred as a witness after repeatedly admitting that he would do or say anything to see Baltar executed.

When Roslin herself takes the witness stand, she confirms for Lee Adama that Baltar helped save her life during her bout with cancer a year beforehand, and later also confirms, over the objections of Adama, that she had resumed taking medication because her cancer had returned. As the chamalla has hallucenogenic side effects, Roslins credibility is seriously damaged.

During a recess in the trial, Romo Lampkin asks Lee Adama to consider that his role in the trial may get him expelled from the "aristocracy" of the Adama family in the fleet. Soon afterwards, Lee argues with his father, Admiral Adama over the principle of trying Baltar. Admiral Adama confirms that the trial is a formality and that he already feels Baltar is guilty. He also condemns Lee for the damage done to Saul, though Lee had no knowledge of Ellen Tighs death, much less that Saul murdered her. In disgust, Lee resigns his commission, and Adama almost happily accepts it. Later, in their quarters, Lee's wife Dualla takes his role in the trial as the final straw to break their troubled marriage, packs her things and leaves over his pleas that she stay.

On Colonial One, Roslin is badgered with questions from reporters about the resurgence of her cancer. Tory Foster, suffering from constantly hearing the music in the same way as Colonel Tigh, angrily tells the reporters to stop prying into Roslin's personal affairs. On Galactica's bridge, Felix Gaeta and Helo review a plan to use the refinery ship as a decoy to lure the Cylons off course, and brood over a gathering storm.

[edit] Part II

After receiving an injection for her cancer treatments in sickbay, Roslin has another vision of the opera house on Kobol. Also in sickbay, Sharon enters the same vision while holding Hera in her arms and both women wake up screaming. Sharon confirms having shared the experience and likens it to the Cylon ability of "projection." They proceed to question Caprica Six in her cell aboard Galactica, and immediately discover that she too had participated in the vision. Caprica talks of feeling compelled to protect Hera.

As Anders and Tory continue to hear the strange music and begin making love, Chief Tyrol is awakened by the music. Both he and Colonel Tigh begin their own searches for its source,but neither can find it. On the hangar deck, Anders realizes that Tyrol is humming the strange music, and the two agree that it sounds like something from childhood.

The trial resumes and Gaeta takes the witness stand. He perjures himself by saying that Baltar willingly signed the death order to have Roslin, Zarek, and others executed. Rather than attempting to prove this during cross-examination, however, Lampkin acts on Lee Adama's suggestion and moves for mistrial, based on predjudicial statements Admiral Adama had made to Lee concerning Baltar's guilt and the predetermined course of the trial. Lee then takes the witness stand, but refuses to testify against his father, instead returning to Lampkin's original line of argument that Baltar, for all his failings, could not be faulted for the tragedy on New Caprica.

By a vote of 3 to 2, the tribunal overseeing Baltar's trial finds him not guilty and the courtroom erupts in furor. His service having been completed, Lampkin abandons Baltar. Reflecting on the trial, Baltar wonders how he will survive. On the bridge, Admiral Adama adds to Roslin's dissatisfaction by informing her that he had in fact found Baltar "not guilty".

When the fleet makes the final jump into the Ionian Nebula, Roslin feels faint and a few seconds later all of the ships suffer a power outage and drift. The Galactica crew struggles to restore power. Moving through the darkness and trying to hide his face, Baltar is suddenly surrounded by three people, including the woman who had asked him to bless her child. They take him to what they tell him is "[his] new life."

Caprica Six returns again to the opera house. The vision progresses further this time and Caprica Six sees herself, Baltar and Hera looking up at the glowing, robed apparitions of the Final Five Cylons looking down on them from a balcony above. Compelled by their own shared auditory hallucination, Tory, Colonel Tigh, Tyrol, and Anders converge on a secluded room on Galactica, where they all hum the melody together and come to the distressing conclusion that they are all Cylons. When power is restored, DRADIS identifies four Cylon basestars bearing down on the fleet and Admiral Adama orders general quarters. All of the newly discovered Cylons return to their posts but are wary of what they might do. As the other pilots scramble to their ships, Lee returns to his locker to grab his flight gear, despite having been removed from flight status.

As Lee launches in his Viper, the song that Tigh, Tory, Anders, and Tyrol have been hearing is played clearly as music for the scene: it is Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower". After launch, Apollo separates from the other alert Vipers to chase a blip on his DRADIS. In the nebula, he sees Starbuck in a Mark II Viper like the one she had been flying when he saw her crash. She pensively says "Hi Lee. Don't freak out, it's really me. It's going to be OK. I've been to Earth, I know where it is, and I'm going to take us there." The episode ends with a massive zoom out from the two Vipers, past the Colonial fleet and closing basestars and out of the galaxy, then a zoom back that ends with a view of Earth, specifically North America, from space.

[edit] Notes

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The song and lyrics that Tory, Tigh, Tyrol and Anders hear is Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower", as adapted by veteran series composer Bear McCreary. The vocals for this version are performed by McCreary's brother Brendan McCreary, aka Bt4, with former Oingo Boingo guitarist Steve Bartek playing various guitars and sitars.^[1] There is no explanation given in the show as to why this particular song is heard, nor where it comes from. According to a conversation McCreary had with Ronald D. Moore, the version heard in the episode is meant to have been recorded by a Colonial artist rather than by Bob Dylan himself.
Ronald D. Moore has confirmed that Tigh, Tyrol, Tory and Anders really are Cylons, albeit "fundamentally different" ones.^[2]
The line "Butterfingers!", which Baltar shouts to Gaeta, was improvised by actor James Callis.
In Ronald Moore's "Frak Party Q&A" pod-cast, Moore is asked why the final shot of Earth showed North America in particular. Moore's comment was that Battlestar Galactica is an American show, and jokes that if another continent were shown, for example Africa, some viewers probably wouldn't recognize it as Earth.^[3]
From Ronald Moore's Episode Podcast he stated that Sci-Fi offered to purchase the rights to the Jimi Hendrix version of "All Along the Watchtower", but he turned it down saying that he couldn't justify the Battlestar Universe having that version of the song.